Praise has come over the Government’s announcement that it is to scrap plans to increase the National Insurance Contribution (NIC) from the self-employed by 2% over the year.
The announcement, made in the Chancellor’s Spring Budget, prompted criticism from across the board, claiming that the change would betray the party’s manifesto commitment to not increase National Insurance, income tax or VAT.
Brian Berry, chief executive of the Federation of Master Builders (FMB), said: “At a time when we need to do everything we can to ensure economic stability, this would have been a destabilising tax increase which would have hit large numbers of tradespeople on quite modest incomes. That would have felt very unfair and would have been in danger of undermining the entrepreneurial spirit Britain will need to rely on as we approach the economic uncertainty of Brexit. There is an important debate to be had about how we ensure an even playing field in the taxation of the self-employed and the directly employed. But we need to do that in a way that allows people to plan ahead and ensures the total package of tax and benefits is fair to the self-employed.”
